The Hostage
by featherfour
Summary: Sam leaps into the life of 16 year old Susan Dempsey, victim of a kidnapping. What does he need to do to get out of this leap? It's easy. Just stay alive. Susan is at risk of being raped and murdered.
1. Chapter 1

The Hostage

…and he leaps.

Once his eyes have adjusted from the blue dazzle of the leap effect, it's dark. Utterly dark. Totally and utterly dark. He's lying down, so maybe he's just in bed and it's night time and he's in this room with all the curtains drawn. That must be it. He can't be blind. He leapt into a blind man's life once, and he wasn't blind then.

There are possibilities though. Leaping makes holes in his memories. Al says it turns his brain into Swiss cheese. What if it's doing physical damage? What if it's turned his optic nerve into Swiss cheese too?

He takes a deep breath to calm himself down. It's close in this room. The air's kind of stale. Must be just that all the windows and drapes and the door are closed. The best way to solve this will be just get out of bed and turn a light on. He tries to sit up and before he's even halfway to vertical, his forehead connects with something hard. Cracks against wood and he flops onto his back again. He's disoriented. There's a shelf or something right above the bed. Close. Is he on a boat? No. No sense of rocking, sound of the sea, smell of water. What about a submarine? No smell of oil, just the rank odor of a human body, the one belonging to the life he's just leapt into, he guesses.

It's not just an unwashed body smell, either. Now that his nose and brain are working properly again after the leap he realizes there's this ammonia stink and it's…

'Oh boy.' Somebody's wet the bed and it wasn't Sam. So…what? He's here to cure somebody's nocturnal enuresis problem? He hopes he's not a kid again. Not that being a kid isn't fun, but Time/Fate/God/Whatever asks an awful lot of him sometimes, and kids are seldom in a position of power.

Anyway, whatever. He needs to get up and do something about the state of this bed. It would probably help the kid if his parents would leave the light on, maybe then he could get himself to the bathroom and this wouldn't happen. This leap could be as simple as asking for a night light.

He rolls over to get up and his knees bump against a wooden wall. He puts his hand in front. Yeah, it's a wall. No wonder it's so close in here. Warm and sticky and smelly. He rolls onto his other side and there's another wall. No. What? He reaches behind him to the headboard, bashing his elbow, bruising his knuckles against - a wall, and when he wriggles down through the dampness towards the end of the bed, his feet encounter more wall. He kicks and his bare feet make a dull _thud_ and the wall doesn't move.

He bangs with his elbow, deliberately this time, and the same dull thud comes from the side of the box. He's in a box. No wonder he can hardly breathe. This is stupid. He's leapt into a box. Just call me Jack. It's a dumb attempt at a joke and it doesn't work at all on him. He presses his palms against the lid of the box, suddenly afraid that it won't open, and he pushes. He pushes so that his arms strain and he brings his knees up and pushes with them too. His arms and thighs begin to tremble and it's close in there and it's hot, sweat runs down his face, armpits, groin and he pushes harder and harder but the lid of the box stays exactly where it was and he's trapped.

It suddenly occurs to him that he could be the victim of a premature burial. He thrusts, one last time, desperate to get out and the box does not move.

'Oh no.'


	2. Chapter 2

The light of Ziggy's handlink dazzled Sam and he smeared away sweat and maybe tears, hand shaking with fatigue.

'Sam. Oh God, Sam, are you okay?' Only Al's face and hands showed, shining in Ziggy's glow like a vision, there in the box beside Sam's right arm.

'Get me out.' Sam pounded the lid of the box.

'Just take it easy. Take it easy, okay? We're doing everything we can.'

'Take it easy? Do you know how much air's in this thing?'

'There's a switch.' Al held the handlink so that it showed a toggle switch in the headboard up high and on Sam's left hand side.

Sam twisted and he could see a grille set right in the middle. He reached across and back with his right hand and snapped the toggle on, heard the reassuring hum of the little fan, felt the first cool, fresh air blow across his face. He inhaled, deep and slow, smelling loam and pine, closed his eyes for a moment and felt the sweat cooling and drying on his face.

'Better?' Al asked after a moment.

Sam didn't open his eyes. He was hoping. He was hoping a lot of things, amongst them that there's no place like home, that maybe he'd just dreamt he was in a box, and that if he tried hard enough he should be able to smell Al's cigar and will himself back to reality.

'Sam?'

This time he did open his eyes. 'You have to get me out of here.'

'It's gonna be okay. It is. This leap's gonna be so simple.'

Sam wiped the sweat and grime off his hands, all the way down the Indian cotton dress he was wearing. He eased the wet part of it out from under him in the hope that it might dry.

'Get me out of here and it'll be simple.'

Al nodded. He took a deep, sympathetic breath. 'It's August eighth, nineteen sixty two and you're Susan Dempsey.'

Dempsey? He knew that name. '_From Timbuktu to South-East China,' _his voice fell into the rhythm of the jingle. '_Try Dempsey's Pies, there's nothing finer. Apple and rhubarb, peach and raspberry too - they taste just too darn good to be true.'_

Al stared down over his cigar, his expression a mixture of awe, pity and sheer disbelief. 'Your brain is made of Swiss cheese, you've forgotten half the Phds you've earned and your Nobel Prize, but you manage to remember _that_?'

Sam shrugged, not an easy maneuver in the confined space of the box. 'Katie used to drive Mom nuts singing that song. She was always nagging about those pies. With all that home cooking she wanted a frozen pie.'

'Your mom was a good cook, wasn't she?'

Sam nodded. 'She was a great cook.' Was? 'She still is, isn't she?' He gazed at Al, suddenly afraid that something had happened to his mother during one of his leaps, and he'd never been told. Or worse, that something had happened to her years ago, before he'd ever started leaping, and that while he'd remembered the dumb jingle from a frozen food ad, he'd forgotten that.

'Sure, Sam. She's okay. She's fine.'

That part of the world was still working. 'One year Mom gave up and bought one of the pies to have as Katie's birthday cake.'

'Oh yeah?' Al was intent, chin cupped in hand, cigar dangling from his fingers.

Sam wondered how often Al wished his own sister into these stories of Katie. 'Worst birthday cake ever.' He laughed. 'Nobody finished it, not even Tom. We gave it to the chickens.'

'And Katie never sang that song again.'

'Oh, she still sang it. Just used her own words. _From Timbuktu, they come in a hearse, try Dempsey's Pies, there's nothing worse._ Then there was something about rhyming "apple" with "crappy" but I can't remember.'

'Swiss cheese?' said Al.

'Defensive amnesia,' said Sam. 'There are some things I don't need to remember.' He tried to ease himself away from the wet patch. It made him itch. 'Susan Dempsey.'

Al held his cigar in his mouth while he fingered at the handlink. 'Daughter of the frozen pie king. Sixteen years old. She disappeared on August sixth and was never seen again.'

Suddenly the box felt terribly, terribly small. 'Kidnapped?'

Al nodded, his finger punching at the handlink, the flat of his hand bashing the side of it, his fist threatening. 'Her father, Big Jim Dempsey, got a ransom note. They wanted half a million for her and he got it. He got it in time and delivered it but they never turned up.'

'When's the ransom drop-off supposed to be?'

Al read from the handlink. 'The twelfth. Midday in a supermarket car park.'

'That's four days from now, Al.'

'I know.' Al's eyes were big and sympathetic. He _did_ know. If anyone understood this situation, it had to be Al, who had spent not just four days but four years in captivity.

Sam didn't want to say anything more, didn't want Al to have to hear how damn' scared he was. He sucked in a deep, slow breath, trying to calm himself. 'Four days.' Maybe all he had to do was stay alive. Maybe the kidnappers hadn't come to pick up the ransom because Susan Dempsey was already dead, but if he could stay alive then this could work out. He just needed to keep her safe. 'That's a long time without food or water.'

'Water's here.' Al angled the lights of the handlink so that they shone on a plastic tube on the floor of the box by Sam's right arm. 'It's connected up to a half-gallon bottle, so pace yourself. There's candy bars and stuff here.' Al indicated lower down, by Sam's hips.

He hadn't noticed them before. Some of them were squashed and the foil had come off or the paper soaked through. Taste sensation: melted candy-bar that was tainted with pee. He rescued some of the less-disgusting ones and put them by his head.

'Is this all I have to do? Just stay alive?'

Al puffed on his cigar and consulted the handlink. 'It's a good start. When Susan never came home, her father just gave up, the whole business crashed. Dozens of people lost their jobs. The factories closed down, farmers razed their orchards. It was bad, Sam. Dempsey's Pies might not have been as good as home cooking, but they were bread and butter for a lot of people.' He checked the link again, shook his head in sorrow. 'Her mother died of an overdose of tranquilizers on the second anniversary of her disappearance.' He looked up, suddenly, staring at what to Sam was just the dark wood of the box. 'She what? Geez.' He looked back to Sam. 'Listen, kid, I've gotta go talk to Susan. I'll get back here soon as I can. Hey, don't leave that fan running too long, you'll flatten drain the battery.' He looked down, regretful, at the handlink. 'Wish there was some way I could leave you with some light.' He clicked a button on the handlink and the exit door of the imaging chamber opened beside him.

He stepped through and left Sam in darkness. There was the sound of the fan for company, the water hose, the crumpled paper and foil of the candy bars, the smell of the place for. That was it. Sam reached up for the toggle switch behind his head and thought for a long moment about shutting the fan off. It was all he had for now and he needed it, but maybe he was going to need it more later on. He didn't want to run the battery down. He swallowed against a throat suddenly dry and fingered the smooth plastic of the water hose. Half a gallon. How long would that last him? He could take a sip now, avoid getting dehydrated. Half a gallon was what? Two or three days' worth. More if he rationed it, but he had no way of telling the time. Not without Al in here. He'd have a little, just a mouthful. There would be consequences later. He dragged the damp dress out the other side. It didn't really help, it was still wet and awful, the bottom of the box was padded with cotton wadding or something and the wet spot was right underneath him and eventually he supposed it was going to get even wetter. He would deal with that problem when it came up.

The rubber tube was only about the diameter of a drinking straw. He sucked at it, biting it flat to hold the pressure in place. It was hard work, just getting a drink. The air in the hose tasted stale, and rank but finally the water came. He held it in his mouth and let it trickle down, a little at a time. He closed his eyes against the darkness and opened them to more darkness.

How had Al managed it? In the still and quiet and thick solid black Sam could have been dead. He could have been less than dead, he could have been nothing. He hummed the stupid Dempsey Pie jingle, just so that he could hear something. Was that it? Was that how you kept sane when you were worse than dead? He inhaled deep, shut his eyes hard and watched the scribble of phosgenes across the inside of his eyelids. Stars. They reminded him of stars. He thought of Don Quixote. Sitting with Al in the bare bones of the imaging chamber, blueprints and wiring diagrams before them and the two of them singing. He tried it, just one line of the chorus. 'To dream the impossible dream, to fight the the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow.' He choked on the last word. Not self-pity; fear. The words fell, dead in the suffocating confines of the box.

He closed his eyes and it was dark. He opened them again and it was still dark. He exhaled, letting the air blow softly out through his nostrils, feeling the tickle of it across his upper lip and paused. Was this what it was to be dead? No. There was a sound. He heard something. It might have been his imagination. He held is breath and really listened this time. There, coming from behind his head, a trill of birdsong. Then nothing again. Could it be real or was he having an aural hallucination? He held his breath and listened again. Nothing. But it was possible. That sound had come in through the grille with the fan behind it and that fan had to be connected to the outside. There! Just as he exhaled he heard it again, the sweet rise of birdsong and he knew he was alive.

Surely if he was close enough to the surface to be able to smell the pine needles and hear the birds, then the box wasn't dug too deep into the ground. He hadn't been able to push the lid off using his hands and legs, but if he could turn himself over, into a crouching position, and press his whole back against the lid then surely that would make a difference. He reached out for the lid above him, trying to gauge its distance, would there be room for his shoulders to fit? He thought there would.

He was scared, just being in the box. He didn't remember any claustrophobic tendencies, there had been no incidents that he could recall of being shut into a small place, either by accident or as a result of bullying. No, this was just plain-old grownup fear. Sensible fear. Al had said that Susan Dempsey had never been found. Not that her body had been located twenty years later, or that remains had been dug up by a bunch of kids on a camping trip. Nothing. Never. If this went wrong then he was just going to be dead in a box under the ground somewhere. It had to go right. It really had to go right.


	3. Chapter 3

He worked himself across the box until his right shoulder was touching the wall. That meant there was plenty of space on the left. He eased over onto his left side, felt his right shoulder catch and then drag along the top of the box. 'Come on,' he whispered. He tucked his arm down and the shoulder slipped past and he was lying on his face. He centered himself in the box again. It was getting hot and close in there with his exertion and he deserved a little fresh air.

Out of habit, he looked up as he reached for the toggle, and he could see light. It wasn't his imagination. There, through the little grill beside the toggle were tiny dots of light and now he could hear the dawn chorus of not just one but many birds. This was right, he was going to be able to get away, to rescue this girl and give her back her life and make right so much that had gone wrong. Who knew? Maybe this could be his ultimate leap, the one that solved all the problems. The one that took him home. He positioned his hands, shoulder width apart, in preparation for his assault on the box.

Light suddenly filled the space and Sam had to shut his eyes to protect them.

'Hey, it's okay, kid, it's just me.' As if it could be anybody but Al.

Sam opened his eyes again, this time to the dappled glow of just Ziggy's handlink.

'What're you doing? How come you're upside down?'

'I'm getting out of here, Al.' Sam turned so that he was facing Al, and rested his head on his right hand.

'How? Oh, you're gonna try a kind of pushup thing.' Al flexed his arms and nodded. 'Hang on a sec.' He tapped a pattern into the handlink and the top of his head disappeared into the top of the box. He walked all the way round the box, returning to Sam's left hand side. 'You've got about five centimeters of dirt on top. They've nailed the lid in a few spots but it's all shoddy workmanship. Your best shot is to work on that back corner.' He pointed towards Sam's right foot. 'There's only one nail and it's not properly in. Only you better hurry up and do this.'

'I was planning to.'

'Yeah, well I've just been talking to Susan Dempsey, Sam. She knows these nozzles.'

'What?'

'One of them's a senior from her school and he's got his cousin and some friend of the cousin's involved. The school kid told her they wanted to raise money to send food packages to China. Apparently Suzie was always at her dad, thought he should be sending half his pies over there to help solve the famine.' Al shrugged. 'This was her idea.'

'She was doing the wrong thing for the right reason.' Sam sympathized. Despite the best of intentions he'd been known to do the wrong thing, once or twice in his life. 'It's pretty extreme, though.' Now the wet patch was under his front and it was even more uncomfortable.

'There's no telling what's gonna go on in the mind of a sixteen year old girl,' Al said. His expression was wistful. He smiled and drew on his cigar. 'Now there was this one girl.' He hid his face in his hand for a moment as if the memory embarrassed even him. 'Now she was something really special, she…'

'Al. You're talking about a sixteen year old girl!' Sam was truly shocked.

'And I was a sixteen year old boy. Sheesh. I swear, Sam, when I get you back home again I'm gonna get you signed up with Boy scouts Anonymous, get you onto the twelve point plan to cure you of this unseemly prudishness.'

'I'm not a prude. I just have…'

'Now let's see if I remember it. There's group sex, mixed sex, outdoor sex,' Al counted on his fingers. 'Um, risky sex, sex with a stranger, sex with two strangers…'

'What is that? A recipe for venereal disease?'

Al rolled his eyes.

'I need to get out of here.' Sam planted his hands firmly apart at shoulder width and rocked back onto his knees, his back pressed against the lid. 'I mean, if she knows these guys, they're taking a real risk leaving her alive.' He turned in time to see the slow rise and fall of Al's adams apple.

'That's what I needed to tell you. They said they were coming back for her. Today. We checked back through all the records and this box gets found in sixty eight. There weren't any, uh, remains inside it.'

This leap was going from bad to worse. Sam pressed his back against the lid and pushed, raising himself as far up on his hands and knees as he could go. He kept up the pressure for what seemed like forever and then relaxed back to a huddle, panting. 'This has to work.' He let the breeze from the fan cool his face.

'Let me check.' The top of Al's head vanished again as he surveyed the lid of the box. 'You gotta give it everything you've got, back on this corner here.' Al was standing back at the corner near Sam's right foot. 'Come on. I'll spot.'

Sam eased himself back onto his hands and knees, his back once again flat against the lid, elbows and hips flexed. Light in the box appeared and vanished as Al waved the handlink in and out in his excitement. Sam began to push.

'Come on.' Al's tone was almost scornful. 'You can do better'n that.'

Sam pushed harder, feeling the bony protrusions of his spine grating against the wooden lid, forcing things, wanting to straighten his arms, bring his hips to a right angle, arch his back, stand up straight.

'Go harder,' Al yelled. 'And wriggle.'

'Wriggle?' Sam's voice came out in a gasp.

'Backwards and forwards. You've got one nail holding this thing in and it's ready to give.'

Wriggle. Sam rocked from knees to hands. His arms were trembling and sweat was leaking down his face and dripping off the end of his nose. He couldn't have put into words how grateful he was for that fan and the thread of cold air, or, more than that, for the sound of Al's voice right there, urging him on.

'Did you feel that? Did you feel it?'

Sam wasn't sure and he didn't have the breath to answer.

'There! There it goes again. It's happening, Sam. The nail's coming loose and the dirt on top of the box is starting to move.'

Sam decided to try a different tactic. He pulled down, as close to the bottom of the box as he was able and set his arms and legs like steel springs and then thrust up as hard and fast as he could go. It jolted him, smashed him into the top of the box and he thudded back to the bottom, winded.

'Wow!' Al was jumping with excitement, his face close down by Sam's. 'Did you feel that?'

He sure did. 'How far?'

'Couple more of those and you'll be out.'

Sam wound himself up for a second attempt, flattened against the bottom of the box and slammed into the top. He heard the nails squealing and the crack of wood and then his own gasp as he hit the floor again. Dirt trickled down onto the backs of his legs. He turned his head towards Al and he could see light flooding through a crack in the lid.

'That's it.' Al was overjoyed. 'All you need to do now is just wiggle your way out.' The handlink and cigar did a little watusi through the air as Al demonstrated.

One more go while the adrenaline was still running through him, while he still felt high enough to not notice the pain that would be starting soon enough. He arched his back against the lid and pushed, heard the wood creak and snap, heard the squeal and pull of the nail, felt the sudden, wonderful give and then there was dirt spilling down on him, getting under the dress and into his hair and he didn't mind a bit.

'You've done it! You've done it!' Al was dancing about, all Sam could see were his hands, appearing and disappearing. 'Ziggy's giving you a ninety-eight percent chance of rescue.'

'Only ninety-eight?' Sam worked at the break. Splinters jabbed into his hands and he brushed them away. He broke off a whole chunk of the lid and the dirt fell on his head and he didn't care.

'Well, just don't go chasing any bears or walking off any cliffs in the wood, I guess,' Al said.

'That's okay with me.' Sam brushed the dirt out of his eyes and pushed his head up through the hole. Fresh air. Light and sound and color and the whole world. It was still there. He couldn't even begin to imagine how this must have felt for Al. He'd been in that box less than a day. 'Which way's the nearest road?' He worked his shoulders through the hole. Jagged shards of the lid bit into his skin and tore the dress, he hitched it back into position, hoping Al hadn't seen too much.

Al was staring up into the sunlit sky beyond the pine trees. 'Uh, nearest road's five kilometers…huh?' He smacked the handlink with his palm and it squealed at him. 'What the? Sam get outta there, get outta there quick.'

'What is it, what's wrong?' Getting out was easy enough to say, but Sam had been lying in that box for long enough to make everything a big cramped, and now it was all getting sore from the battering he'd just given himself, breaking his way out. He was using his arms to lever himself up, but the muscles were trembling with fatigue and it was a struggle. Sam pulled himself out of the hole on his elbows. The dress caught and tore and beneath it, so did his leg. A jagged claw of wood opened a gash in his right thigh.

'What are you doing? Your odds've just dropped to ninety-two percent.' Al stuck the cigar into his mouth and stared at the handlink, his eyes wide in disbelief. He smacked it again and again as if that would change the reading. Apparently it did. 'Eighty-nine percent!'

Sam staggered to his feet, clutching at the gaping wound. 'What's happened?' He tore the rest of the piece of material that the wood had started and bound it around the cut.

'Oh, geez, Sam. There's no follow up to the first ransom note, the kidnappers are never found, but you, I mean, Susan, is. In three days her body's found by the side of the road, five kilometers from here. Strangled. Time of death - today.' Al gazed at the wound in Sam's leg, blood was already leaking through the rough attempt at bandaging. His focus changed and his expression became way more appreciative than it should have been for Sam's leg.

'Give it a rest, Al. She's just a kid. She's sixteen years old.'

'Oh. Yeah. Right. Can you walk on that?'

'Sure.' Sam wasn't really sure but he wasn't going to just stand there and get himself strangled. 'So if the nearest road's five kilometers and I don't want to go there, where's the second-nearest?'

'Hundred and eighty three kilometers.' Al looked apologetic.

'What's plan B then?' Sam had no delusions about his ability to walk a hundred and eighty three kilometers even without a dirty wound. He'd have been lucky to get five kilometers wearing the plastic sandals which were Susan's footwear, already the ungiving cut of them was biting into his feet and he was pretty sure he had a blister on the back of his ankle without even walking anywhere in them. Aside from that he had practically no water and only some pee-flavored candy bars for sustenance. Not that he actually had the candy bars yet. To do that, he'd have to go back into the box, and he was pretty sure he didn't want to do that.

Al squinted at the handlink. 'Well there's a hiders' train.' He frowned at it and bashed it until it squawked at him. 'Hikers' trail three miles east of here and that joins onto a fire fighters' track.'

'Might get lucky and find some Boy Scouts,' Sam said.

'Might get really lucky and find some Girl Scouts.' Al grinned.

Sam looked back down at the box. Like it or not, he was going to have to get those candy bars out, and the water bottle, too. He knelt on the ground beside the lid of the box and pushed the dirt out of the way. It had been buried deeply enough to have gone unnoticed by a casual ground search or from the air, especially with the cover of the pine forest. Susan hadn't had a hope of escaping or being found. He worked his hand into the crack, then pulled it apart, felt a kind of angry delight at destroying the box. The space inside looked awfully small. The thought of having been in there made him feel sick. He took several deep, slow breaths, wanting to settle himself, to not be afraid as he reached in for the food.

Eight candy bars. That was all they'd given that girl to live on for the rest of her life. Not caring about her slow, horrible death from starvation and dehydration. He decided to take them all, he would wash them when he wanted to eat them. They were better than nothing. The dress had baggy pockets in the front and he stuffed the candy bars into them then went to the "head" end of the box to find the water bottle.

The half-gallon jug had been stuffed into the ground without much care. Dirt had spilled in through the top and dead bugs floated on the surface. He pulled the rubber tube out of the box and measured its length. He could use it to make a sling for the bottle so that his hands wouldn't get tired carrying it. He looped it around the neck of the bottle and tied it in place. The rubber kept trying to expand before the knot was finished and with that and the aching throb in his leg, he could feel himself getting angry, frustrated and he kept forgetting how the knot was meant to go.

'Around and then up.' Al, crouched beside him, waved his cigar at the tangle. 'No, not that end, the other end. Around there.' The cigar passed through the tube, indicating a kink where a loop should have been.

Sam pushed the end of the hose in and dragged it, saw the knot evolve, pulled it tight.

'That's it!' Al crowed.

'Thanks Al.' Sometimes Sam felt so dumb. He had how many doctorates and he couldn't tie a simple knot. He wanted to complain. He wanted justice, for himself, for the work he'd done, for the person Sam Beckett was.

He knotted the ends of the plastic together and looped them over his shoulder then tried to stand up. It hurt. Just in the short time he'd been sitting beside the box, fighting with a hose, his leg had swollen and the pain of it speared through his leg. He let out a yelp and stumbled, fell to his knees clutching at the injured leg. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus beyond the pain. When he opened his eyes again, there was Al, squatting beside him, helpless anguish drawn across his features.

'Sam?' Al always had Ziggy's link in one hand and a cigar in the other. It was a kind of necessity. Sam knew he wanted to reach out; to touch, to help. He would have wrapped Sam's arm around his shoulder and walked with him a hundred and eighty three kilometers if he could have.

'Sorry.' Sam wiped a hand across his face. Wished it could take away the pain as easily as it wiped off sweat. He tried standing again, more slowly this time. The pain in his leg was like a scream. He took an unsteady step and then another, he was not going to get far.

Al tapped at the handlink, looked through the thick woods towards the road and tapped again. 'Oh jeez.'

Was he looking at the holographic world around him or at something in the imaging chamber? Sam steadied himself. 'What?'

'Can you move it a little bit faster?'

He had to be kidding. His leg was going beyond pain and into a whole new dimension of reality. He was beginning to experience it as color and sound, a red, hissing sensation that was making him feel queasy. 'Why?'

'Look I know you're not gonna make it a hundred and eighty three kilometers any time soon, but you at least gotta hide because those nozzles that kidnapped you…'

'Susan.'

'Yeah, right. That kidnapped Suzie are on their way back and they're gonna kill you.'

'No.' It hurt too much. This was not fair. Sam struggled, hobbling steps away from the box.

'Ninety three percent. Her body gets found in the forest not far from here and it's,' Al paused and read the handlink then punched a finger at it as if he was wiping something away. He puffed on the cigar, short, nervous tokes.

'It's what?' If he could just get out of sight of the box it would help, it would be a start. If the kidnappers didn't know where to look for Susan then maybe they'd give up straight away.

'It's not good.'

'Just tell me.'

Al's shoulders slumped. He glanced at the handlink but he didn't need it to remind him. 'She was tied up, sexually assaulted, tortured and then beaten to death.' He delivered the words in an urgent, staccato rhythm, motioning with his hands for Sam to move, _move_ because there wasn't much time. Because things had gone from bad to worse. 'Her body gets found in three days. Sam come on. The same stuff happens with her parents, only sooner.'

Sam shuffled through the pine needles and to the first row of bushes that gave him cover from the box. Around him there was birdsong and the chatter of insects, the shush of the wind. It was a lonely place to die. The isolation, the lack of anybody to care, the utter sadness that somewhere out here a girl had been left to starve to death. That somewhere out here she would be treated with such utter contempt, her body, her life, nothing but a plaything. He wasn't going to let it happen.

The pain tearing at his leg was getting worse, making him feel sick. How far did he have to get before they wouldn't find him? Would it be enough to just hide from them? How far would they be prepared to search for her? He urged himself on, almost oblivious of Al, despite the shiny green suit with flashing purple and gold LED button he was wearing. This was just going to be him, getting away, giving this girl back her life. Giving her parents back their hope, and a workplace for all those people in the factories and on the farms. He had to do it. He just had to. He squeezed his eyes tight shut against the pain and his foot caught on a a tree root. He sprawled onto the ground.


	4. Chapter 4

'Saaam! What are you doing?' Al crouched beside him, tapping and slamming the handlink. 'Get up, get up. They're here. Ziggy's got them on his sensors.'

The sandal's strap had snapped. Sam pulled it off, almost relieved to have it gone, and then decided he'd be better with both feet the same, and pulled the other sandal off as well. 'Where?' Sam tried to propel himself up but fell on his face a second time; it hadn't occurred to him that his dress had been trapped beneath his knee.

'Over there!' Al waved, an unnecessary gesture. Even as he spoke, Sam could hear the angry-wasp ring of trail-bikes. 'Gotta get up. Up!'

There was wetness running down Sam's face. Sweat or tears, he wasn't sure which, he didn't care. His heart was pounding and his hands shaking, adrenaline pouring through him so that he wasn't feeling the pain now, just the need. Get away. He forced himself into a staggering run, aiming for the thickest shrubs, the best cover. A million stones, sticks and tree roots seemed to poke up into his unprotected feet but he ignored it all. He needed places those trail-bikes couldn't go.

'This way.' Al led the way, passing through fallen logs and tangled creepers.

'I hope…there's…no poison ivy…ow!…in there,' Sam panted.

Al sucked on his cigar and rolled his eyes. 'As if I would.'

Sam crawled after him, thrusting through bushes that tore at him, ripped chunks out of his dress. He didn't care, he just had to get away.

'Down here.' Al was whispering as if they could hear him.

The sound of the trail bikes rang through the forest. They were like hunting wolves, calling to each other. There was a dark space beneath a fallen tree. 'You'll fit,' Al said.

Sam pushed his way down through the dirt. Spider webs clung to his hair and face, dust drifted into his eyes and he scrunched them shut, tried to blink them clean although he wanted to rub them. His leg ached, the wound pushed into the dirt. He tried to ease himself onto his back so that he could at least wipe it clean with the hem of the dress, but there wasn't room. He was only deluding himself anyway, that wound was already dirty and he could feel the first hot throb of infection building in it.

'Stay low,' Al hissed.

The bikes ripped past, they made a sound like chain-saws, tearing apart the forest. Sam gave up and brushed the dust from his eyes. Al was crouched in front of him, as if he could shield Sam from the hunters on their bikes. In the distance he could hear the sound of the engines, growing louder again.

'Has anything changed?'

'What?' Al looked up over his cigar, something that might have been panic shining in his eyes.

'Ziggy.' Sam gestured at the handlink. 'Now that I'm hidden, has anything changed.'

'Oh, yeah.' Al shot a plume of smoke and turned his attention to the handlink. His fingers jabbed an urgent tattoo and bashed and bashed the link with the side of his hand as if it was stuck giving an inappropriate reading. 'It's no good, Sam, you gotta get out of there. They still find you. Her.'

The sound of the bikes had lulled and Sam could hear voices, a victorious crowing, harsh laughter and then the bikes again. The bikes, getting louder.

'Now. Get out now.' Al grabbed at him, insubstantial hands passing through Sam's wrists and shoulders.

Sam lunged forward, every step jolting red hot razors through his thigh and the voices were loud and the sound of the bikes was all around him, that howling, screaming ring of bikes like angry hornets.

'This way!' Al, vanishing into a thicket and Sam trying to follow him.

All that noise and then nothing. Suddenly nothing. And then a voice, harsh and male. Young but low pitched. No humor in the tone, only a grating, vicious edge. The voice of a predator. 'Just like tracking a wounded elk,' it drawled.

Sam stopped and turned. He could hardly walk, now, anyway. He felt as vulnerable as a deer caught in headlights. There were three of them. Two were large, young men, early twenties at best but with the rough confidence of pack dogs. The third was younger, the schoolboy who had lured Suzie into this trap in the first place. He hung back. Perhaps that was a flash of guilt in his expression. It was hard to tell from this distance.

Al burst through a thicket of bushes. 'Get a move on. What are you? Oh geez. This is very, very bad.'

'You stupid little bitch.' The leader of the group dropped his bike into the dirt and strode towards Sam.

'I know,' Sam said to Al.

'Yeah, we all know.' The leader didn't even pause. When he was close enough to reach, he snapped a backhanded slap that cracked across the right side of Sam's face, spinning him to the left, momentarily blinding him.

'Bastard!' Al yelled. He shuddered at the hit but already was tapping fast at the handlink. 'Gus Bancroft,' he said. 'Guy's a career criminal. Started out stealing candy from babies when he was at nursery school, currently doing time for murder. Police suspected him in the Dempsey case but never got a break. You okay?'

Sam hunched over, hands covering his face. His right cheek burned and his eye throbbed. He stood there for a long time, allowing tears of pain to leak between his fingers. He trembled and his shoulders shuddered, as if he was sobbing. 'What about the others?' he murmured to Al.

'Redhead's Ray Trimble. Died in sixty-eight in an MVA following a convenience store robbery. Spent half his life in prison up till then, petty larceny, drunk and disorderly, even managed to get himself busted for assaulting an off-duty police officer. Total loser.'

'Just where the fuck did you think you were going?' Bancroft grabbed Sam's shoulders and shook him hard.

Sam took his hands away from his face, knowing that he must look hopeless. Snot-nosed and dirty, his right cheek glowing hot. He looked into Bancroft's mad eyes. 'Nowhere.'

'Nowhere. That's right.' Bancroft swung at him again but Sam was fast enough this time, moved with the hit so that it only caught him a glancing blow. Bancroft grabbed his arm and shoved him towards the other man and the boy.

'Where are you taking me?' There was no way they could get him back into the box, not alive. The lid was smashed and it wasn't going to keep him in place again. Sam was afraid they were just planning to put him back in the box dead. He'd be much less of a problem to them that way.

'Good point,' Bancroft said. He stopped and reached into his pocket.

'I don't know,' Al said. 'But there's an old cabin a little over ten kilometers from here. Used to be part of a loggers' camp in the days when those nozzles were cutting down the forests. I can't believe they would do that, I mean will you look at all this?' Al gazed up into the sun-speckled canopy of trees. 'How could anybody cut these down?'

Bancroft shoved Sam between the shoulder blades, closer now to Trimble who was still astride his bike. 'Get on.'

'Why's she have to get on my bike?' Trimble grumbled. 'Filthy slut stinks.'

He spat into Sam's face but when Sam raised his hand to wipe it away, Bancroft, behind him, whacked the side of his head so that now he had a thick ear to match his swollen eye and stinging cheek. 'Keep your hands to yourself,' Bancroft barked.

'He was just trying to wipe his own face,' Al yelled back. It never seemed to bother him that the people couldn't hear.

In Bancroft's hand there was a filthy rag that had been used to wipe up grease after working on the bikes, or something.

'Cheez! Why don't you try picking on someone your own size?' Al's face was a hand's breadth away from Bancroft.

If he'd had a mirror, Sam would have seen himself as a slender girl with lank and dirty strawberry blonde hair, being monstered by these men. It was frighteningly easy to act the part, he was cowed and exhausted and confused, the ache in his leg was making him feel ill, and it was so swollen he could hardly bend his knee.

'Just get on,' Bancroft shouted again. He tore the rag into two long, filthy pieces.

Sam staggered, almost overbalancing as he got onto the pillion seat behind Trimble. His feet were sore and battered and he could hardly flex his knee to get into position on the foot peg. He was wearing nothing but an indian cotton frock, a small lacy bra and a pair of pee-stained panties and he'd never felt more vulnerable in his life. His leg was caked with blood and dirt and he felt dizzy and sick, hardly able to balance on the back of the bike. Then Bancroft grabbed his arms and dragged them behind him. Sam flexed his muscles, trying to fight the sudden constriction of his wrists, Bancroft was using one of the rags to tie his hands together. There was no point in fighting, there was nowhere to run and Sam had lost his bearings now, he couldn't even find his way back to the road if he stole the motorbike. He just had to let himself be treated like an animal, to hope that he could buy enough time to get out of this.

Al watched on, helpless. A moment later Bancroft used the other half of the rag to cover Sam's eyes. It was hard enough, trying to balance on the back of the bike with his hands tied, but now he couldn't even see.

'Wait, you can't…'

A hand snatched his hair and a fist drew him close to Bancroft's cigarette breath.

'Don't provoke him, Sam.' Al's voice, reassuringly close to his other ear. 'He's crazy. If you just, if you just be nice he might go a bit easy.'

'Be nice,' Sam repeated, dazed.

'What?' Bancroft's voice screamed at him. 'What'd you say?'

'I, uh…'

'Because you don't tell me.' He shook Sam, jerked him viciously. 'I tell you.' He shoved Sam hard, slamming him into Trimble's BO smelling jacket.

'I'm afraid I'll fall off.'

'Well you better hang on,' Trimble said.

'Squeeze. With your thighs,' Bancroft said, his voice thick with innuendo.

The others laughed with him and a hand slipped up Sam's leg, beneath the dress and squeezed, fingers brushing perilously close to the thin cotton of his stinky panties. Despite his fear and hatred of the situation, he let himself lean into the rider's back, his hands bound helpless behind him, unable to grab onto anything, and he clenched his thighs as tight as he could, onto the worn vinyl of the seat.

'Just hang on, Sam.' Al's voice close beside him, thick with passion. 'I'm gonna be right here, right here with you.'

The bike shuddered beneath him and tipped as the rider planted his foot on the ground and spun them around.

'Just - when I tell you to lean, you lean, okay?' Al said.

'Okay,' Sam agreed.

'What'd you say, bitch?' Trimble shouted.

Sam didn't reply, relied on the noise of the bikes to cover anything he might have said.

'Right here, kid. Get ready, now ease over to the left.' Al's voice was steady, reassuring.

Sam listened to Al's instructions, tipped with the rider, followed through, straightening up with him. He wished he could have seen Al, standing just there on his left, keeping up with the bike thanks to the effortless magic of Ziggy. It seemed like a long time, holding to the back of that bike and his right leg had gone numb, weak, he could no longer hold his foot on the foot peg and could only hope that it was angled away from the bike enough to not get caught in the chain or get hit by the rocks on the dirt track. Worse than that, he was feeling cold and he knew it was the cold of fever. That the infection had set into that leg and was going to make him really sick.

The bike slowed and the sound of the engines cut and died.

'I was right,' Al said. 'It's the cabin.'

Somebody grabbed Sam's upper arm and dragged him off the bike. Stones bit into his feet and his right leg buckled beneath him. He fell awkwardly onto the ground and couldn't stop a yelp of pain.

'Get up, you stupid bitch.' The boy's voice.

A foot connected with his back.

'Leave him alone you bastards.' Al just didn't care that nobody could hear him.

It hadn't been a hard kick, the boy could have broken ribs if he'd wanted to. Sam didn't care either way, he was just cold. So cold. He pressed his chest against the faint warmth of the ground beneath him.

'Hey!' Trimble, sounding angry. 'What is she, a contortionist or something?' Sound of feet scuffling in the dirt. 'Maybe if her hands weren't tied up she could get up.'

'Oh, gee perfesser. Thanks for that.'

Hands pulled at the rag around his wrists, jerked him roughly so that the rag twisted and bit deeper before it came loose. Sam wanted to reach around and take away the rag that was masking his eyes, but his arms had been twisted in their sockets and gone numb and useless.

'Now get up!' The boy's voice again, vicious, harsh.

'Just leave her alone.' Trimble's voice was close by his ear and it must have been Trimble's hand on his arm, helping him up, but now Sam could hardly walk, could hardly move.

He was shaking all over, so cold. So very cold. He hugged his arms across the torn fabric of the dress and when Trimble put his arm around Sam's shoulders, he leaned into the other man, not caring that this was one of the men who abducted Susan, who raped and murdered her, only seeking out his warmth. Trimble pawed the blindfold off Sam's eyes as they walked. All at once he could see the ramshackle cabin, the rotting verandah, Bancroft and the boy, both carrying backpacks Al walking beside him, like a ghost passing through walls.

It was dark and stuffy inside the cabin until the boy opened the windows and pushed the shutters that were covering them. It was small and dirty, just one room with a fireplace at one end and a couple of camp beds at the other. Sam wanted one of those beds. He was past caring about what was going to happen to him or Susan or whoever. He was cold and he was sick, his feet hurt and his leg ached and if he could just lie down on one of those beds and wrap a blanket around himself everything would feel so much better.

'What are you doing with her?' the boy said.

'How about leave him alone,' Al suggested to no one.

'You're not giving her a bed,' Bancroft said. 'Bitch stinks to high heaven.'

'Oh, and I'm betting your personal hygiene sets a standard,' Al snapped.

'Maybe she could have a wash or something,' Trimble said.

'A floral scented bubble bath for madame?' said Bancroft.

'Hey, yeah,' the boy was laughing. 'She could have a perm set and hand job afterwards.'

'Hand job?' Al spluttered.

'Hand job?' Bancroft snorted.

The boy's face reddened. 'You know, where they get their nails all prettied up and stuff.'

Sam was deeply relieved.

'Manicure,' Trimble said. 'I was thinking of just warming some water up over the fire and letting her wash herself a bit.'

'What for?' Bancroft emptied tins of food out of his backpack onto a wooden table and then poked at the fireplace. He turned to the boy. 'Go get some firewood.'

'What for?' Trimble jerked Sam towards Bancroft. 'I don't know about you but I don't enjoy the smell of her.'

Despite what he said, Trimble's arm was still firm around Sam's shoulders, and Sam was grateful. His teeth were chattering too hard for him to even try to answer either of the men, and he didn't think they'd be interested in whatever he had to say anyway. He'd have loved to put on Trimble's jacket though, he'd be warm then, and he so wanted to sit down. He looked at Al, feeling helpless.

Al shook his head. 'It's that cut on your leg, Sam. Ziggy says your temperature's up over a hundred degrees now and climbing. You're in for a bad time unless you get some antiseptic, antibiotics and a whole lotta painkillers and I don't think these nozzles are gonna be any help with anything.'

'Please,' Sam hissed through his chattering teeth. 'Even if it's just a bucket of cold water.' He hated the thought of cold water. The thought of anything cold, but if there was a chance he could get himself clean, then he had to take it. 'And disinfectant. If you have any.'

Trimble grabbed up a sooty metal bucket from beside the fireplace. 'Just be grateful for whatever you're given.' He sat Sam down hard onto a wooden stool and took the bucket outside.

Sam pulled the rag dressing away from the wound in his leg and poked his fingers into the hot, hard flesh. Maybe he could get it cleaned up. Maybe he could help himself.

The boy came in, his arms full of firewood, and dumped it on the floor by Sam's feet. 'You really are a piece of work, aren't you? Sitting there like queen bitch, just like you do at school, just waiting for everyone to do stuff for you.'

'Danny Alesio,' Al read off the handlink. He gave a short, hard laugh of derision. 'Dies from a drug overdose in less than a year.' Al peered at the boy. 'Great career move, kid.'

'I didn't ask to be here,' Sam said. He decided to take a risk on what little he knew about Susan. 'And I don't just sit around at school, it's called "studying." I'm trying to improve my mind.'

'And look where it got you.' Danny pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and took one, lit it. 'Pies for the Chinese. That is fucking A-one. I mean, can you even begin to see what's wrong with that for an idea?'

Trimble came back in, he didn't have the bucket with him. 'Thought you were supposed to be lighting the fire,' he said to Alesio.

'Yeah, all right. Keep your shirt on.'

Trimble picked up a blanket from the nearest bed and took Sam's arm. 'Come on.'

He didn't want to get up. It was going to hurt. It was going to be cold. 'I don't think I can.' Sam leaned forward on the chair, trying to keep his weight just on his left leg.

'Well, you have to.' Trimble's grip tightened around his arm but his tone was almost sympathetic.

Sam stumbled down the rickety verandah steps and stood by the bucket, now full of water. His dress was sodden with sweat and the breeze blew through it, chilling him. He stood in sunlight but felt no warmth. Al, head down like a guard dog, stood beside him.

'Take it off,' Trimble ordered.

Sam looked at him dumbly. The only things he had on were clothes.

'Don't!' Al said. 'She got raped. Don't do anything.'

'Don't mess me round,' said Trimble. 'And don't get all conceited. I got a kid sister your age and I'm not interested. Now take that stinkin rag off.' He grabbed the neck of the dress and tore it so that the front gaped and hung off Sam's shoulder. 'Come on. Get it off.' He held up the blanket. 'Take everything off and once you're done washing you can wrap up in this.' He turned so that his back was towards Sam. 'Hurry up and get done.'

Sam gazed at Al, helpless.

'He does have a sixteen year old sister.' He shrugged. 'If it's any help, I'll turn round.'

Sam pawed at the neck of the dress, dragged it down past his shoulders and let it fall to the ground. At least he wouldn't stink any more. And maybe they'd let him lie down. It would be so nice to lie down, the headache might go away then, too. He reached round behind himself for the bra hook, had no idea how it worked. This was so incongruous. He knew if there was a mirror handy he'd see a skinny sixteen year old girl in her underwear, but looking down, all he could see was his broad, hairy chest encased in a lemon colored nylon lace bra. A-cup.

'How can you have such trouble undoing a bra?' Al was sucking on his cigar, shaking his head in dismay at Sam's ineptitude.

'I thought you were going to turn your back.'

'Just get a move on, willya?' Trimble turned away again.

Sam was on display. He pulled the bra straps down his shoulders and off his arms then turned it round backwards so that he could see the hook that was keeping the contraption done up.

'Now that's something I'da liked to see in school time.' Alesio was standing at the top of the stairs, grinning like a rat trap.


	5. Chapter 5

'Go light the fire, you little ass.' Bancroft came out of the cabin behind Alesio and shoved him back inside the hut. He remained where he was, just standing on the verandah, watching. There was no smile on his face, just the slow, thoughtful stare of the predator.

Sam turned away from him, stripped off the panties, reached for the bucket and splashed water at his leg.

'That sleaze-bag's still staring at you, Sam.'

'Here.' Trimble reached over his shoulder and passed him a handkerchief. It was unironed but surprisingly clean. 'Wash the leg as much as you can, you want to stop it getting infected.' He turned away again. 'My mom was a nurse.'

Sam found it difficult to focus on the job of cleaning himself. He was unbearably cold, despite the sun beating down on him and pain was making him sick and dizzy. He thought of Trimble, though. He'd hoped originally that he might gain some sympathy from Susan's school friend, Alesio, but there was an ugliness there that went soul-deep. He assumed that Bancroft was the cousin and Trimble the friend: the follower who had somehow got himself involved in all this. Trimble, the loser who would finish up dead and Sam wondered how much of his life had got screwed up on account of Susan Dempsey's death. Leaps were hard, sometimes, to judge, but he thought he was getting better at it. Maybe he was here for Susan Dempsey's family and the people involved with the business, but maybe he was here for Ray Trimble as well.

'Why don't you give her one?' Bancroft's voice was thick, his tone dark.

'I'll give you one…' Al's hands had bunched into fists around his cigar and Ziggy's handlink.

Sam risked a glance, Trimble was still turned away from him, offering Susan a very small amount of dignity. He was ignoring Bancroft, staring into the trees.

'Just get her back inside. We don't want anyone to see,' Bancroft said.

'Are you done?' Trimble said. His voice was flat, harsh.

'Uh, no. I…' Sam had hardly even started. It hurt, he was cold, his hands wouldn't work properly and he could hardly bear to touch his own leg. Aside from that he was filthy from lying in that box, from climbing out through dirt, from sweating in the sun, and without soap and hot water he didn't know where to begin.

'You still stink.'

Trimble upended the bucket of water over him. Sam let out a howl, the shock of the cold water hitting him was almost painful. A moment later Trimble was wrapping him in the blanket, his arms around Sam's shoulders.

'Sorry,' he whispered.

He led Sam back towards the cabin, Bancroft's scornful gaze followed them up the steps. Al walked alongside, floating in the air, passing like a ghost through the verandah rail. 'Trimble's mother is a nurse. Well, was a nurse,' Al said. 'His father died in Korea and things sort of fell apart for the family when that happened. Could explain why he took up with that…' Al's fierce expression caught Bancroft, ran him through, would have killed him if only he'd known.

Trimble led Sam to the bed furthest from the door and Sam gave himself up to the musty smelling mattress, pulled the blanket tight around himself and hunched onto his left side. His whole body shook with the cold and his teeth chattered and although he tried to hold onto the gravity of his situation, he couldn't. Couldn't hold onto anything. Memories slipped in and out of focus and he wasn't sure where he was.

'Can you put another log on the fire, Al? I'd do it myself only I'm just so tired, I can't get out of bed and you're up. Is it snowing? It has to be, doesn't it? If it's this cold.' He pulled the blanket down over his head, trying to keep the warmth in. Al was peering up at him, looking so worried. Why did he look so darn worried? And there he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with purple palm trees and the cutest little hula girls. 'How can you? How can you dress like that when it's so cold?'

'Sam…' Al was kind of waving his cigar around like he was doing semaphore. Maybe his cigar was keeping him warm.

'How come you're not freezing?'

'Ssssh.' Al reached towards him, like he was going to put a hand over Sam's mouth.

'Why are you?' Some other guy came and stood next to Al. It was weird because he looked as if his leg was going right through Al. Right through his whole body. No blood or anything, just bits of Al shining through where the other guy's leg wasn't. 'Why are you telling me to shush?' Sam looked at Al, waving his hands about, shaking his head as if _no!_ and then at the other guy. 'Why's he telling me to shush?'

The man shook his head as well, squatted down beside the bed. He looked familiar though Sam wasn't sure why. He was tall and smelled of BO and had red hair and he'd seen Sam naked and for some reason that was a whole lot worse than the regular locker room embarrassment of being naked.

'Here.' The man reached under him, sat him up, keeping him supported with one arm. 'Drink this.'

He held a greasy enamel cup up to Sam's mouth. Sam reached for it, eager, his hands shaking again with cold. Chicken soup. He could smell it. 'Hey, chicken soup, Al. It's warm. It's warm. We should have thought of this. Is it snowing?' he asked the man.

'It's not cold. You're sick. You have a fever.' The man held the cup steady, one hand around Sam's, stilling the shaking, the other firm around his shoulders, keeping him upright. It was so hard to just sit, Sam appreciated the help.

'A fever?'

'I think it's from that infection in your leg.'

Oh, that's why his leg hurt so much, there was an infection. 'I should see a doctor,' Sam said. It was all so simple, he didn't know why nobody had thought of it. He took another sip of the soup, it was that kind of instant chicken soup from a packet that he used to make for himself as an after-school snack. He sipped down the hot broth, chewed on one of the little chunks of meat. 'I _am_ a doctor,' he said and smiled at the man.'

'No, Sam, _no!_' Al was going through the full set of histrionics, looked like he was doing a bit of a war dance and tearing his hair out, all at once.

Sam hadn't quite finished the soup but the man took it away from him, then pressed the back of his hand against Sam's forehead. 'You need a doctor. See what I can do. You're burning up.'

He wasn't burning up, though, he was freezing cold. Cold and tired. He was glad, really, when the man let him lie down again, tucked the blanket around him. Al was still there, still looking at him, so worried. 'Hurt my leg, Al.'

'I know, kid.'


	6. Chapter 6

'You can't keep her, you know.' Bancroft had been watching Trimble as he'd fed the chicken soup to Susan.

'She's sick. We should get her to a doctor.'

'Oh right.' Bancroft laughed, a sharp, harsh sound devoid of humor. 'You know what that'd cost us.'

'I know what it could cost her if she doesn't get treatment.'

'Breakin my heart, here.' Alesio clutched his chest. 'I can think of a couple a things she's still good for, long as she's warm.' He fell about, laughing, delighted with his own joke.

Trimble raised a hand, ready to slap Alesio but instead it was Bancroft who hit him: a solid blow on the ear. He turned and swung a wild punch but Bancroft was bigger than him and faster and altogether a better fighter, he dealt a straight left that caught Trimble on the cheekbone, just below his right eye and sent him tumbling back against the stack of firewood. 'I'll tell you what your bleeding heart's going to cost - it's going to cost all of us our lives. Think of that did you? Because we're up to here in this.' He ran his finger across his adam's apple in the classic throat-cutting gesture. 'We're kidnappers and kidnappers fry in this state so I'll tell you what's not going to happen.' He jabbed a finger at Susan, huddled on the bed, shaking and talking to herself. 'She's not going to a doctor. Not till we've got the money and get outa here. Once we've made the split you can do what you like. Sit here and hold her hand and wait to get arrested for all I care.'

'I can think of much better…' Alesio smirked.

'Shut up.' Bancroft bashed him across the ear. 'We've got one day to wait for the money and her father'll have it.'

'Splitsville,' Alesio sighed. 'Tell me about Mexico again,' he said to Bancroft.

'Jeez, you're just like a kid waiting for fairy stories,' Bancroft said. He smiled though. Mexico would be like Christmas and Halloween and Fourth of July all rolled into one. They'd have enough dough to impress every dumb spick, get themselves high as kites and live like kings with whole harems of women the color of honey and just as sweet.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam had drifted into a restless, fevered doze and Al had taken the opportunity to get out of the Imaging Chamber and talk to Doc Beeks. Not that he thought Sam was really going to miss him, just before he'd z'd off, he'd been having this great conversation with his mother about chicken soup, and then tried to catch butterflies that weren't there.

'Wish we could get some antibiotics into him,' Beeks said. She frowned at the readout. 'Even some soap and water to clean the wound would help a little. Are you sure there's no way…?'

Al shook his head. 'I don't think those nozzles he's with ever heard of soap and water. There's just nothing and no way they'll take him to a doctor. When I left, the ringleader was reading the riot act to the other guys. He knows the score. They have to get away, out of the country, before Susan can identify them. I mean the odds of Sam surviving this leap are still…'

'In the low zeroes.' Ziggy's voice echoed around the room. 'I estimate that Sam's Dr. Beckett's chance of getting out of this one are worse than, to use the vernacular, a bit ca-ca, they're totally f…'

'Cheez!' Al snapped. 'Do you mind? There are ladies present. I still can't believe your programming came from the mind of the biggest boy scout this side of anywhere. What'd he do? Take some Jekyll and Hyde potion?'

'Guess he just gave the best parts of himself to me. The other parts are from you.,' Ziggy said, sounding smug.

'Well how about using some of them to help?'

'As if I could doI am willing to consider anything I could do from the here and now,' Ziggy said.

Al exchanged a glance with Beeks. 'Guess that's my cue then. Is there anything?'

Beeks shrugged. 'The chicken soup was good. Maybe he could ask for more. Aspirin will help with the fever if he can get some, and a cold compress. He just needs help, Al. That's what he needs.'

Help, and a friends right there on the spot wouldn't do any harm, either. Al stepped back into the Imaging Chamber, into the strange half world of holograms with his best friend looking like a beaten and delirious teenage girl. Her face so dirty, the mattress and bunched up ticking that she was using as a pillow wet with sweat, and inside her somewhere, there was Sam.

'Hey, kid.' Sam's eyes didn't open. Sweat sheeted his face, soaked around him in dark patches on the mattress. Over by the fire the three kidnappers had broken out a bottle of cheap bourbon and were trying to impress each other with stories of bravado.

Alesio's talk was sexual, ugly. 'I could do her right now while she's asleep, she wouldn't even know.

'What are you, a necrophiliac? She almost dead.' said Trimble.

'Aw, listen to the perfesser and his five dollar words,' Bancroft said, laughing.

'She's just a kid,' Trimble said.

'So'm I. We're perfect for each other.' Alesio made calf eyes at occupied bed.

'You want your first time with something worthwhile, a real woman. I'll buy you one, day after tomorrow,' Bancroft said.

Alesio took a long, slow suck at the bottle. 'She needs to be broken in and I'm the man to do it.'

'Just can't wait to pop your cherry, can you?' Trimble said.

'Hey I've done it before. Lots. There was even this teacher…'

Al turned away, not wanting to listen. 'Doesn't count when you're on your own,' he murmured. He walked back to the bed, crouched beside it. 'Sam.' Nothing. No movement, no response. Sam was out cold, exhausted. Someone should have been putting a cold compress on his head.

The cockfight in the corner was getting louder and more ridiculous, if Alesio's claims were true, at least half the girls at school should have been pregnant. Al checked Ziggy's handlink, just to reassure himself. At the time of Alesio's death, still reading as a drug overdose within the next twelve months, and for the nine months following, his name did not appear in the "father" field of anyone's birth certificate. A small mercy to be thankful for. Susan's fate was still an ugly death looming in less than a day, there was no certain time of death, they couldn't exactly pin it down by the time they found her body, but her last minutes were clear: rape and strangulation.

'Show you this little trick I learned about.' Alesio, staggering to his feet, was undoing his belt.

'What? How to make your pants fall down?' Trimble was sniggering through his bourbon.

'No.' Alesio dragged at his belt, twisting in a circle as he followed it, then realized he was pulling the wrong end. ' 'S called ozzigen depervashn. Makes em really gooooo.' He giggled and wove a staggering course towards Sam, unconscious and helpless on the bed. Naked under that blanket. Alesio's hand was on his pants, fumbling the buttons.

'Come on, Sam, get up, get up!' Al screamed in his ear. 'I promise you, if you don't, you're gonna get such a nasty surprise.'

One eye cracked open, a millimeter of hope. 'H'm? Al?'

'Yeah, baby, it's me!' Alesio, still trying to undo the top button of his fly, but looking more like he was groping himself, fell onto the bed, on top of Sam and started humping.

'Oh, nice technique, kid.' Al was only disappointed his sarcasm was being missed. 'Yeah, I bet all the girls really love that.'

'Whadaya doin?' Sam's hand came out from under the blanket, wrapped itself around Alesio's throat and casually flung him across the small room.

'How in hell did she do that?' Bancroft, sounding outraged and a little awed, wove across the room to rescue his cousin, who was lying in a heap, giggling.

'Very nice move, Sam,' Al was appreciative. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that the person he was looking at, however puny-seeming, was a holographic cover created by Ziggy, and underneath there was Sam. Six foot something with a tendency of spending way too many of his lonely hours working out.

'Just wanna sleep now.' Sam laid back down on the mattress. Al was glad he couldn't smell it. 'Just goin' sleep.' This time he pushed the blanket away from him. It was a disturbing image of a teenage girl, naked, sweaty.

She looked wanton and Bancroft had noticed. 'Look at that.' He hauled Alesio to his feet and pointed at Susan. 'You just let that throw you across half the room.'

Alesio stood beside him, blinking his eyes as if he couldn't focus properly.

'I'd get him outta here if I was you,' Al warned. 'Coz I know what's coming next.'

Alesio's stomach started working and he retched.

'Get outside if you're gonna hurl!' Bancroft shoved him towards the door and then came over to Susan's bed.

'Oh, Sam. You're in trouble. Get up, can't you? At least cover yourself.'

Bancroft propped in front of the bed, thumbs tucked in his belt. 'I dunno how you did that to my cousin, but you won't be throwing me anywhere round the place.' He was right. He had at least five years and fifty pounds on Alesio, who was hardly more than a boy. Even in a fair fight Sam would have been almost equally matched against him. 'But I do think you need some breaking in.'

'That what you think?' said Trimble.

'You can have seconds.'

'You really want firsts of this?' Trimble grabbed the corner of the blanket and twitched it back off Sam to reveal the black and fiery red of the wounded leg, pus dripping down onto the bed. From the reaction by both men, Al could only imagine that the smell was every bit as revolting. Bancroft spun round and headed for the door. Trimble turned away, inhaled a deep breath and held it, then turned back to cover Susan back over with the blanket.

'You're some kind of knight in rusty armor, aren't you?' Al said.

Trimble stood for a long while, looking down at Susan, at Sam. He pulled the now grubby handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe the sweat away from her face.

'Still got a chance, kid,' Al murmured.


	8. Chapter 8

It hurt just to move. Sam had been lying still for so long, it felt as if all his joints had locked into place. His leg throbbed and when he tried to bend his knee, it hurt so much he couldn't stop himself from moaning.

'Ssh!'

Al was right there with him.

'I don't think you'll wake them, but let's not take any chances, hey?' Al gestured to Bancroft, snoring on the other bed, Alesio, slumped in a chair by the dead fire and Trimble on the floor, by the foot of Sam's bed, with his jacket folded under his head.

'What happened?'

Al pointed to a small collection of empty bourbon bottles. 'They went nighty night a couple hours ago, right after you defended your honor. Well, Susan's. Well, no, yours.'

'I did? How?'

'You gave Suzie's school friend a little lesson in aerodynamics.'

Sam stared at him, bewildered.

'Whoosh!' Al demonstrated with his cigar. 'Right across the room. Before he could even get his pants off.'

'That's a relief.'

Al looked apologetic. 'You're still not out of the woods, kid.' He held up the handlink. According to Ziggy you've got less than twelve hours.'

Sam eased himself up, into a sitting position. He peered at his leg. It was hard to see much with only the lights from the handlink and the first grey show of dawn. He could smell it, though, and feel the tight heat of it. He slumped back against the wall behind him.

Al, in a gesture that seemed oddly modest, held his hand up across his eyes. 'Would you mind?'

Sam had forgotten. He reached for the blanket and held it against himself. Seemed odd, though, Al worrying about this when he could have been having a free show. 'That's not like you.'

'Suzie deserves some respect. She's been through a lot.'

'She deserves to be home. With her parents.'

'There's only one person can get her there.' Al gazed at Sam. 'Well, maybe two.'

'Who?'

Al nodded towards Trimble. 'Look at him. Like a faithful dog sleeping at the foot of the bed, protecting his mistress.'

'Nice way to think of a kidnapper.'

'You missed it. He was your protector. Kept the kid talking when he wanted action, kept Bancroft away, too. I'm really wondering about him.'

'You said he gets killed in a holdup or something. Robbing a convenience store, wasn't it?'

'Oh yeah, but that's not for years, yet. Life of crime, drugs, theft, he spends a lot of time in jail before he buys the big one. I'm just wondering though. He seems very attached to Suzie.'

'There's a term for that,' said Sam. 'When a kidnapper and the victim start to build a relationship. Geneva Syndrome? Moscow Syndrome? Some city, it was…'

'Swiss cheese syndrome. Stockholm. It's called Stockholm Syndrome.'

'Well he does keep on helping me and I'm wondering if he's part of what this leap's all about.'

'That nozzle?'

'So he fell in with a bad crowd. It happens, Al. I'm betting after Susan died his life just fell apart.'

'His life?'

'Okay, so he wasn't exactly an innocent party in all of this, and he could be helping now, but I think with just a push to get him started, he could move in the right direction.'

'Ever thought of changing your middle name to Pollyanna?'

'It could work, Al, and he's the only hope I've got.' Sam edged himself to the edge of the bed and eased his feet to the floor, but there was no way he could put any weight onto his left leg. He wrapped the blanket around himself in a kind of sari fashion. 'What's his name again?'

'What? Oh. Trimble.'

'First name?'

Al punched at Ziggy's handlink. 'Ray. Good luck, Sam.'

Sam had edged all the way along to the end of the bed. His left foot hung beside Trimble's face. He could easily have kicked him in the nose.

'Ray.' Sam pitched his voice low, hoping it was loud enough to wake Trimble but not the others. 'Ray, wake up.'

One bloodshot eye came open.

'Ooh, that's gotta hurt,' Al sympathized.

'Wha?'

Trimble's breath smelled like something had crawled inside and died there.

'I need you to help me.'

'Huh?'

'Help me,' said Sam. 'Please Ray. Get me out of here. Get me home or to a doctor or something.'

'You mean get myself locked up for ever, or buy a death sentence?' He dragged himself into a sitting position and pulled the jacket into his lap, plundered the pockets until he found a packet of cigarettes. 'I must look crazy to you.'

'Not crazy.' Sam ignored the offered cigarette. 'They're the ones who're crazy. If you help me, then - you'll have helped me. You'll be the one who doesn't get into trouble.'

'Ohhh, Sammmm,' Al was shaking his head in dismay.

'What's that, the niceness theory of law?'

'Look, what hope do I have if you don't help me? You don't honestly think they're going to let me go, even if they do get the money, do you?'

'That was the plan: moolah and then Me-uh, and then getting away.'

'I can identify,' Sam waved his hand at the boy, he'd forgotten his name.

'Danny,' Al said.

'Danny. I can identify Danny. We were in school, and I know that other guy's his cousin. You really think they're going to risk that? There could be a police bulletin out on them before they get within a hundred miles of the border. They're going to kill me, Ray, and the only person that can stop it happening is you.'

'Why do you want to rely on me for?'

'Because you're all I've got.'

'I let people down before. My mom. My sister.'

'Self pity.' Al raised his eyes to the heavens in exasperation. 'That's just what we need, a kidnapper who feels sorry for himself because he was a bad boy.'

'Well don't let me down.' Sam's voice was quiet and firm. 'Help me out, Ray. Please.'

Trimble took one last draw on his cigarette and butted it out on the floorboard. He pulled his leather jacket on and stood, looking down at Sam on the bed, all wrapped in a blanket. 'Can you walk at all?'

'I'll need help.'

Trimble nodded, stooped and wrapped Sam's left arm around his shoulder, helped him stand. It hurt so much. Sam stifled a moan. Just the act of standing made him feel sick and dizzy but he fought the nausea and took his first uncertain step, leaning hard on Trimble.

Neither Bancroft nor Alesio moved as they walked past. The air outside the cabin was fresh and cool, filled with birdsong and morning light and hope. Sam settled onto the bike behind Trimble and held on while he kicked it into life. He hoped the others wouldn't hear, wouldn't care. He just had to get away.

'Nearest hospital's that-a-way,' Al said, and pointed. The bike took off as if Trimble was following directions.

Sam burrowed his face into the cigarette smoke and BO smell of Trimble's back and held on. Every bump and pothole shot razor blades through his leg, every twist and rise of the road put his head into a spin, but he was getting away. That's all that mattered. He figured they weren't too far from the main road when he heard the sound of the other bikes coming from behind. Trimble risked a look, an urgent twist over his shoulder, cranked the bike up and skidded for a moment in the dirt before it skipped on. They had to get away, they had to.

There was no thinning of forest, just all of a sudden there was the road in front of them, a T intersection. Trimble slowed just enough to make a wide, dangerous sweep across the sealed surface and then settle back to the right hand side of the road. It was still too early for there to be much traffic. Sam heard the buzz and blast of the other bikes and knew that they'd come around the corner too. He said a silent prayer to God/Fate/Time/Whatever. If it had the power to send him there then surely it had the power to help, just a little bit. Maybe it could put a time warp in front of those other bikes and slow them up, or burst a tire or throw a chain or something. He peered over Trimble's right shoulder, risking dust and bugs in his eyes, and there, coming in the other direction, was something. The something of his salvation: a police car.

Sam stuck both hands in the air and waved. Trimble slowed the bike. The police car slowed down and they all stopped.


	9. Chapter 9

Sam laid down on the back seat of the police car while an officer with a first aid kit did his best to clean up the leg. They'd called for backup, identified Alesio and Bancroft who had turned their bikes around and raced off in the opposite direction as soon as they'd seen the police car. Even if they went back into the forest, they couldn't stay there long. They had no food and their gas tanks would run dry soon enough. Their names were already on the wanted list.

'How ya feeling, kid?' Al's face was sticking out through the back of the front seat. It looked kind of spooky.

'Real tired.'

'Bet you are,' said the officer. 'Your folks gonna be so happy to see you. You can't imagine.'

'I can imagine.'

Trimble, not even handcuffed, was giving a full statement to the other officer while they waited for the ambulance.'

'They hurt you any?' The officer peered at Sam, the question was loaded, he wasn't asking about a gashed leg.

'No.' Sam shook his head. 'And I did this to myself. They'd put me in kind of a crate to start off and I busted out of it. Caught my leg when I was getting away.'

'No…other?'

'Ray helped me.' Might as well start putting in a good word now.

'Sam, this is starting to look good. It's really looking good.' Al was intent on the handlink. 'Suzie gets back okay to her parents. Bancroft and Alesio will both be arrested by the end of the week. Bancroft,' he shrugged. 'Spends the next four years in and out of jail, gets himself a job as a mechanic. Alesio,' he shook his head. 'Maybe some things are written in stone. Gets tried as a minor, gets off, still dies of a drug overdose before the year's up. But your friend over there in the rusty armor, he takes the cake. Goes back to study while he's doing time, gets a degree in psychology, and is still running a successful detox clinic. Looks like one lame duck you rescued.'

'So why am I still here?'

'Ambulance'll be along soon, Susan,' the officer said. 'We don't want to move you too much, you look like you're suffering a bit from exposure and they can hook you up to a drip. Nicer ride than in the back here, too. You don't want to be with our passenger.'

'He did save my life,' Sam said. 'You have to remember that. In case I don't. He put himself at risk to get me away from the others.'

'Okay.' The officer rubbed his hand along Sam's arm, placating him.

In the distance, Sam could hear the wail of sirens. Ambulance, he guessed, and maybe more police.

'Suzie's parents do okay too,' Al said. 'No split ups, no tablets and bye bye cruel world. So why haven't you leaped?'

Why hadn't he leaped? One siren ground to a halt, two others passed by and faded into the distance.

The police officer walked away for a moment and then came back, smiling, delighted. 'Got a surprise for you.'

'Oh, darling.' A large, heavyset man who could only have been Big Jim Dempsey, thrust himself into the car and gathered Sam into a bear hug. His beard bristled against Sam's ear and he smelled stale and unwashed, ketotic, as though he'd had nothing to eat or drink for days. 'We were so afraid. We were so afraid. We thought we were going to lose you.'

Another pair of arms wound around Sam and he could feel the soft press of a woman behind him, smell her hairspray, feel her face, wet with tears, pressed into the back of his neck. Two ambulance men rolled a gurney to the car's door. Dempsey picked Sam up and lifted him out of the car, then stood for a moment, holding him over the gurney, not wanting to be separated, even for this small moment.

That was when Sam suddenly realized what he needed to do to complete the leap. 'Pies for China, Dad,' he whispered. Susan Dempsey, so wanted, so loved. Worth more than all his money to her father. Worth the risk.

For a moment, Dempsey's grip intensified, as if there might have been anger. Then his hand rubbed against Sam's back, gentle, soothing. 'You have such a good heart. All this and you can only think of others. We'll do something sweetheart. I can't promise pies for China, but something.'

Al, gazing at the handlink, looked suddenly delighted. 'Children's shelter,' he crowed. 'Dempsey creates a trust for street kids. That's gotta be it, Sam.'


	10. Chapter 10

He feels it first in his heart, that charge of blue energy rushing through him, ready to move him on or back or wherever, just somewhere else. Just somewhere else where what's gone wrong needs to be put right…

…and he leaps…

THE END

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story do not belong to me. They have been borrowed for the sake of some fanfiction fun.

My thanks to online buddy Helen Gerhard for her help with beta reading this story.

Al and Sam often speak in metric terms (100 metres away etc) and originally Sam's fever was in metric temperature, but this was changed to imperial measure for US readers. I have changed my spelling in this story to US style English.


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